One after another brought companions
there, and, apparently fascinated by their own reflection, broke
out passionately against the expression they felt in the figure
of despair, of atheism, of denial. Like the others, the priest
saw only what he brought. Like all great artists, St. Gaudens
held up the mirror and no more. The American layman had lost
sight of ideals; the American priest had lost sight of faith.
Both were more American than the old, half-witted soldiers who
denounced the wasting, on a mere grave, of money which should
have been given for drink.
Landed, lost, and forgotten, in the centre of this vast plain
of self-content, Adams could see but one active interest, to
which all others were subservient, and which absorbed the
energies of some sixty million people to the exclusion of every
other force, real or imaginary. The power of the railway system
had enormously increased since 1870. Already the coal output of
160,000,000 tons closely approached the 180,000,000 of the
British Empire, and one held one's breath at the nearness of what
one had never expected to see, the crossing of courses, and the
lead of American energies. The moment was deeply exciting to a
historian, but the railway system itself interested one less than
in 1868, since it offered less chance for future profit. Adams
had been born with the railway system; had grown up with it; had
been over pretty nearly every mile of it with curious eyes, and
knew as much about it as his neighbors; but not there could he
look for a new education.
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